Psychosocial aspects of HIV and AIDS.

Psychiatrists see human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected patients who suffer from several types of psychiatric disorders and personality disorders. These syndromes can arise (1) in people who have had a previous history of a similar illness; (2) in people in whom the HIV infection exacerbates a borderline condition; (3) from the stress of the HIV infection and its known prognosis; and (4) only rarely is a person who is not HIV infected but becomes unduly or unrealistically concerned about acquiring the infection.